Where Did The Dough Go? #41

Welcome to another weekly edition of “Where Did The Dough Go?”. Below you can get a completely open and honest view of what we’re spending money on, how much we’re saving, investing and putting away for retirement. Please feel free to learn from our financial mistakes if at all possible, it’s way better than making them yourself. ;-)

Friday 10th
+ $1,252.31 Honey’s Paycheck
– $700.00 (rent and bills)
– $94.13 (cigarettes)
– $24.95 (honey’s whiskey)
– $38.04 (gas @ 3.369 per gallon)
– $5.40 (some SMB thing the gas pumped added)
– $4.86 (Carl’s Jr)
– /+ $1.00 (transfer to savings)
-/+ $2.00 (transfer to ING to save for Car insurance)

Saturday 11th
No spend day :-)

Sunday 12th
No spend day :-)

Monday 13th
No real spending today :-)
– /+ $1.00 (transfer to savings)
-/+ $2.00 (transfer to ING to save for Car insurance)

Tuesday 14th
No real spending today :-)
-/+ $50.00 (to Roth IRA)
-/+ $25.00 (replacing borrowed to Health & Dental acct.)
-/+ $25.00 (replacing borrowed to Car Expenses acct.)
-/+ $15.00 (to Puppy Expenses acct.)
-/+ $15.00 (to Travel Fund)

– /+ $1.00 (transfer to savings)

-/+ $2.00 (transfer to ING to save for Car insurance)

Wednesday 15th
– $89.54 (groceries)
– /+ $1.00 (transfer to savings)
-/+ $2.00 (transfer to ING to save for Car insurance)

Thursday 16th
– $16.22
(beer for honey)
– /+ $1.00 (transfer to savings)
-/+ $2.00 (transfer to ING to save for Car insurance)

Total Weekly Spending: $1,118.14
Pre-tax 401K Contributions $142.40

Categorized:

Savings $85.00
Rent & Bills $700.00
Dining Out $4.86
Cigarettes $94.13
Groceries $89.54
Gas $38.04
Other $5.40
Alcohol $41.17
Roth IRA Contributions $50.00
Save 4 Car insurance $10.00

Left-over for remaining week $134.17

Notes:
Gas pumps are getting trickier and trickier, you shouldn’t have to make sure you don’t accidentally add car washes or some weird fuel additive, that’s just lame. My honey wasn’t paying very good attention and accidentally added in some weird stuff with our gas the other day. He didn’t even know he did it; I only realized because I review all of our receipts. Aside from that, things went okay this week.

Our lease ends at the end of this month, so we signed another one and will be paying an extra $25 in rent from now on. That’s not too bad, some apartments I’ve lived in have increased it like $100 or so. Hopefully we can keep our grocery spending low next week to get back in the groove. I did spend a good amount on meat the other day, steaks, bacon and lunch meat, so that should last a little while.

 

How did your budgeting/spending go this week?

About Jen Perkins

Likes: saving money, being debt free (aside from our house), zombies, travel, getting money, blogging and dogs. Dislikes: debt, being broke, bunnies, wasting money, not having enough money to travel the world and paying interest. Facebook  ♥  Twitter  ♥  Google+  ♥  RSS

Comments

Where Did The Dough Go? #41 — 14 Comments

  1. I know I am showing my age, but every time I see how much we are all spending on gas now. When I was first married my wife and I budgeted $50 A MONTH for gas for two cars (one of which was a 1966 Chevelle Malibu).

    • lol. I remember 13 years ago, when I was 17 (I still can’t believe I’m 30 now.) gas was only 97 cents per gallon. That was pretty cool, but I guess that was in Illinois, so I’m not sure if it was the same everywhere else or not, but probably close.

  2. I filled up my van this week and used my Kroger points to knock off $1 per gallon. It brought the price down to $2.64 per gallon and saved me $15 total. I would much prefer the 97 cents per gallon from 13 years ago!

    • That’s awesome, I didn’t know that Kroger gave you a buck off each gallon. We have Fred Meyer here (instead of Kroger) and the best I can do is 10 cents off each gallon.

      • It’s one of those rewards that you have to accumulate. You earn it in ten cent per gallon increments but you can choose to save it until you have $1 per gallon. Every little bit helps, right?

        • Totally, I always say “It all adds up.” That’s just really cool, I wish my store offered us the choice to do it too. :-)

  3. I love that you have a puppy saving account. I actually love that you have savings accounts like that in general – what accounts do you use? ISA accounts? I never know what to do for those. I want to open a clothes, entertainment, and gift account but I dont know what type to open.

  4. Thanks your lucky stars you’re not living in the UK! A LITRE of gas is about £1.40, which equates to about £5.30 for a US gallon. This equates to about $8.40 per US Gallon!!

    Also cigarettes are around £7 for a packet of 20 – about 11 US Dollars!

    Over here we have to quit smoking and drive less if we want enough left over for whiskey!!

    • Wow, it’s really expensive over there. With gas and cigarettes that expensive, I probably never would have started smoking to begin with. Does the price seem to deter people from smoking over there?

      • Probably a little Jen, but not that much. If people want to smoke then they will find the money! Cigarettes are highly addictive, in fact more addictive than heroine, so cost will not deter many. A lot of people will buy 20 a day (some more), which would come to about £50 or $80 per week. Often these people struggle financially, but they can’t stop. The vast majority of the cost goes to taxes, so these people are effectively paying far more tax.

        What I believe is more effective is the government health warnings, restrictions on advertising, free help to quit on the NHS, plus the new law that has stopped smoking in public places. For too long smokers were too well catered for.

        In regard to gas (or petrol as we call it here!) it probably doesn’t stop people driving, but it has pushed us to buy cars that are more economical. Mine can do 68 miles per UK gallon for instance. That is probably 2 to 3 times more economical than a typical US car, so I suppose it more or less levels it out.

        • I guess you’re right, when you’re addicted to something, you’ll find a way to get it. I didn’t know that cigarettes are more addictive than heroine, that’s pretty bad.

          Having a law to keep people from smoking in public places is a smart idea, around here, we can’t even smoke in bars anymore. Which is also good because we save money from not going to bars anymore. Also, I think non-smokers shouldn’t have to be around smoke if they don’t want to. I wish our car got that great of gas milage, but we can’t really afford to get one like that right now.